Telephones and other communication devices for exchanging voice, data, or other information through public switch telephone networks (“PSTNs”) have existed for a substantial time. However, telephones have recently been created that exchange communications of voice, data, or other information through packet-switched networks of the type that computers use to communicate with each other. These telephones use a digitized format that is broken down into discrete Internet Protocol (“IP”) or other message units to represent voice, data, or other information. Because packet-switched networks allow users to share links, available bandwidth on a communications link is used more efficiently.
Unfortunately, exchanging voice, data, or other information through a packet-switched network presents a variety of problems. For example, packet-switched networks have no dedicated bandwidth available for particular users. Users in a remote cluster must share bandwidth that allows for only a maximum number of voice channels. If all voice channels are in use, then a user trying to make a voice call over the communication link has to continuously try the connection until a voice channel is free, which is extremely frustrating.